• Every one of us will experience a sense of purpose and peace if we simply realised, and believed, that we are each a strategic placement, placed by God where He wants us, with whom He wants us, because of what He has planned for us.
• God is big on positioning – Elisha was positioned for Elijah’s mantle, Esther was positioned in the palace, Ruth was positioned in the bloodline of Boaz, Joshua was positioned to take the baton from Moses – again and again we see people in the Bible who understood that one word from God should be enough for us to be positioned for maximum impact.
• One of the most demoralising things though can be when we see what we do in life as futile and as having no effect.
• This is damaging in many ways because it causes us to take our eyes off what God has put in our hands and to look at what others have in theirs.
• You might be a plumber sitting there wishing you were the man doing the preaching, not because you can but because it seems to be so much closer to something that God would approve of.
• We downgrade our own jobs and our own lives because we think that it is only in the up-front, public-eye work where the favour of God lies and that is quite simply not true.
• As a matter of fact there are plenty pastors and up-front people doing work in God’s Name that is not actually what God wants.
• What we need is a mind-set shift, a paradigm shift, that has us all realising that regardless of what our occupation is, that thing that brings home the bacon and feeds us, that as Christians we are also occupied with a task that is far bigger than even this world.
1 Corinthians 12: 14-20
• You are a vital part of the body and you have been positioned in the Body of Christ – the Church, for maximum effect.
• A lot of your impact however is going to be determined by your heart attitude in relation to the world that we live in.
• Tomorrow each of one of us will be in a different place – some in an office, some in a lecture hall, some in a classroom, some on a building site, some in a kitchen and some in a workshop, but today I want to pray that God will give you all a heart revelation about the task He has called you to, and a heart revelation about where He has positioned you in the world.
• Salt is useless if it stays in the salt shaker – and Jesus says that we are the salt of the earth, which means we need to be out there in the world being salt and that means adding flavour
• Salt makes sure that food is not bland – we are positioned to make sure that wherever we work is never boring because we have salt to add – too much makes it bitter by the way, and unpalatable, but salt administered in wise and well-timed measures can have a huge effect.
• This world is in big trouble – stress is consuming the hearts and minds of people and that comes when our foundation is shaken and we feel insecure about ourselves, but I remind you that as Christians we have a sure foundation in Christ Jesus and He cannot be shaken.
• So I put it to you today that it takes all the striving out of your work when you are occupied with a task that is bigger than you are.
• And because I believe in God positioning us and God placing us, I put it to you that if you are serving Jesus and giving Him some footsteps to guide, that you are already busy with a task that is far bigger than yourself
• It’s just that you don’t yet realise it.
• But when you do, you will find that a God-given task will change the attitude with which you tackle work, and the way you walk through life and it will have an effect on everyone around you.
• Life without Jesus is futile, but life with a heart that is correctly positioned in the world is a life that will have impact
• And you do this by changing your heart attitude towards what you do in the world, towards what God has put in your hands to do, because just because God put it there it doesn’t mean that it is always going to be something spiritual like preaching or leading worship – anything that God gives you to do is determined by Him and therefore needed by Him, so stop seeing life as futile – even Solomon did:
Ecclesiastes 2: 20-26
• So futility is attached to stress, but satisfaction in our work comes from the hand of God – as well as wisdom, knowledge and happiness.
• And all it takes is a heart shift that realises that where you are is where God wants you to get a heart revelation about how you can best advance the Kingdom in that place.
• The position of your heart will determine your stress and striving.
• If your heart is on Christ, your heart is in Christ, centred on Christ, focussed on Christ you will change your outlook on what you do day-to-day.
• Fulfilment comes when your heart-position is right.
• What God has given you to do is what he wants you to do, and He will move you on when you have done what He wants you to do.
• There is no task under the sun that cannot be seen as a service to God, and there is no honest job under the sun that cannot be used to glorify Him.
• And when you have that heart shift, your spiritual nourishment improves because you find that your spirit feeds off the God-given task at hand:
John 4: 34
• Hard work done is Jesus’ Name is good soul-nourishment.
• Look at what Jesus said to these hard-working guys:
Matthew 4: 18-20
• Note something here – although they put their nets down on this day, we know that they did pick them up again because we see later stories of them all out fishing again.
• But Jesus had taken their task and realigned it so that they could go fishing and see it as a forerunner to the great work they would still do in their lives for Jesus
• But they carried on fishing because that was what was in their hand – that was their honest living
• But our abilities coupled with God’s calling, all hooked up to the purposes of Christ will lead to a heart that is positioned for maximum effect in a world that we thought we should be trying to get out of
• And that’s where a lot of Christians fall short
• We spend our days trying to get out of the world into some sanctified, sterilised and sanitised utopia where we all gaze at the clouds, join hands and sing Kum-Ba-Ya.
• Instead we need to be seeing our offices and classrooms and building sites and workshops and factories and surgeries as pulpits for lifestyle evangelism where you are a dispenser of salt and a bringer of light because you have realised that what God has given you to do is not futile but awesome and right for you for this chapter of your life
• And what did we learn earlier – that when we get busy doing what is in our hands He gives us the desires, the dreams and visions of our heart.
• Position your heart for maximum impact by realising that our position in the world is that we are standing on a rock, our hands full of the equipment for a task that is noble and higher than the ways of the world.
• And our hearts full of the purposes of the Great El Shaddai who will never leave us, never, never, never leave us or forsake us.
